Using factual history, personal stories, and original photographs, St. Helena Island residents and authors Sonny Bishop and his daughter, Elizabeth Bishop Later weave a narrative that is rich in perspective about growing up and raising a family in the Lowcountry.
Sometimes poignant, frequently humorous, and always engaging, this book is a testament to the importance of home as an anchor during life’s most trying times. So begins the journey, guided by lifelong St. Helena Island native, Sonny Bishop. Through this sensitive and introspective narrative, made rich by Sonny’s personal stories and photographs from his large collection, readers are invited to ponder the meaning of home, the importance of family, and the growth and change that can come from challenges and adversity.
Marvel at the beauty, charm, and history of this place we call home.
On St. Helena Island, South Carolina a quiet tidal creek flows past a charming and beautiful place called Yard Farm – formerly the Fuller Plantation. Sometimes poignant, frequently humorous, and always engaging, this book is a testament to the importance of home as an anchor during life’s most trying times. Sonny Bishop’s reminiscences of Dataw Island before it was developed, firsthand accounts of one of the worst hurricanes to impact the Sea Islands, and his boyhood recollections of Beaufort and St. Helena Island create an intriguing portrait of a quieter, more peaceful time in the history of what has become one of the southeast coast’s most popular destinations.
The book opens with the authors offering a glimpse of the special part of the Lowcountry where they grew up. “On a warm, humid, late summer evening, with a gentle southerly sea breeze from Wallace Creek protecting us from the mosquitoes, my father takes me on a little tour of “home.” Once the Robert Fuller Plantation, also called Fuller Place, and later called the Yard Farm (in Gullah – “de Ya’ad”), there is important history here that I want to capture.” And so begins this intimate retrospective. Although the book is replete with personal tales of growing up on St. Helena Island, the images selected from his huge collection of photographs provide incomparable visual impact.
These beautiful books have a hardcover with a dust jacket and contain 203 pages of history, stories, reflections, and previously unpublished pictures of Beaufort and St. Helena Island, South Carolina.
